Eye of the beholder
by Lillipop265
Summary: "Hermione Granger knew she was not beautiful. She knew she was not even pretty." Hermione's perspective of her appearance, Ron's to follow in a few days.


**A/N:** Because sometimes you'd just rather throw a one shot out there than do any school work :) Second part (Ron's perspective) to follow hopefully in a few days, when I once again feel like procrastinating.

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><p>Hermione Granger knew she was not beautiful. She knew she was not even pretty. She didn't even need to be told this; she could see other girls with their perfect straight hair, their symmetrical faces with just a sprinkling of freckles, their glistening eyes and their small features. Hermione Granger knew she was not one of these girls; she did not fit in to such a category. She would never be someone who others aimed to look like. She tried to keep her focus away from this issue but if you were to watch her you would realise that Hermione spent many a night in the girls' dormitories with her hands buried in her hair and her head tucked to her knees, ignoring the voices in her head which reminded her of such trivial things.<p>

Hermione's hair was simply untameable, it escaped from the clutches of any hair-tie she attempted to constrain it within and instead flung any which way it desired. It would refuse to even lie flat choosing to expand in all directions drawing an unnecessary and unwanted amount of attention. Hermione's hair would just not comply to her wishes, it had a life of its own and it was not about to be held back. Hermione knew it only grew worse when she was stressed or angry, which was fairly often when a certain Ronald Weasley was around. Her hair would become out of control to a point where she was past caring until she would catch sight of herself in the mirror that evening.

Hermione's skin was by no means perfect, not in her eyes anyway. She did not possess a light smattering of freckles like other girls, girls who were pretty. Hermione's skin was plain, not clear but plain. Boring, uninteresting, undefined. The only feature her skin showed was the deep-set worry lines which had grown prematurely across her forehead. She had taken on such a workload in combination with worrying about her friends and was now rarely seen without those creases across her face. Creases which were becoming more deeply etched by the day.

Hermione also disliked her eyes. They were a mid-tone hazel colour and much like her skin were a plain and boring sight. Hermione could not imagine that anyone would ever bother to look at her eyes for any length of time. Her eyebrows were also far larger than she would have liked. This was in stark contrast to the eyelashes that she often wished she could lengthen. The primary feature of Hermione's eyes were the deep bags that lay beneath them. Dark purple circles which held memories of the time she had spent working or worrying when she should have been sleeping. They would not vanish because she never gave them a chance to.

Hermione held similarly negative views on her other facial features; her nose for example was too long, perhaps metaphorically poking itself into other people's business where it was not wanted. Her mouth was also abnormally large, perhaps because she was using it so often to answer questions. Or perhaps it was to accommodate her overgrown teeth which, even after Madame Pomfrey had shrunk them, still did not seem quite right. Sometimes, on the rare occasions when Hermione would look in the mirror she would feel her whole face had been stretched out of its original and correct proportions into a not entirely abstract but not entirely right version.

Hermione Granger knew all of these things but the majority of the time she chose to ignore them. Aside from her appearance she knew there were far more important things in her life. She chose to hide, sometimes in a literal sense, behind her books. She was not however immune to criticism from herself or others. At the end of it all Hermione Granger was a teenage girl as riddled with insecurities as any other. Her fear ran deeper than just her appearance: she feared loneliness. She knew she would always have her friends by her side but she secretly longed for something more. Hermione needed reassurance as much as anyone else; she had taken it once, in fourth year with Krum. He had paid attention to her in a way that no one else had and she latched on to it gratefully but Ron had ruined that for her, perhaps intentionally or perhaps not. He had stolen that night from her, reminded her of who she really wanted, who she really wanted and all the things she feared she may never gain. Deep down Hermione Granger wanted to feel beautiful, just once.

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><p><strong>AN: **So that's that then. It bothers me that FF thinks 'Hermione' is a spelling mistake. I should be sleeping but this is obviously a better use of my time. Reviews will brighten my otherwise mundane school-days :) 


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